


Just Roll With It

by Milieu



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Characters Play Dungeons & Dragons, Friendship, Gen, Humor, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Slice of Life, So much D&D 5e talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 09:40:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieu/pseuds/Milieu
Summary: Shuichi invites his weird boyfriend to game night, and everyone else just tries to be cool about it.





	Just Roll With It

Kaede, Kaito, Maki, and Kokichi sat somewhat tensely around the library table they'd commandeered for what Kaede called an "emergency friend group meeting" or something along those lines.

Well, the first three were sitting and looking serious. Kokichi was noisily eating a snack bar and seemed to be reveling in the dirty looks Maki kept giving him.

"So..." Kaede finally began, spreading her hands on the table and pressing down on the surface with her fingertips, unconsciously miming the act of sitting at a piano and preparing to play. She wasn't usually one to fidget. "I know Shuichi's probably mentioned this to all of you already, but I just wanted to get everyone together and see how we all feel about adding someone new to the group."

"No," Maki said flatly, without hesitation.

"Yes," Kokichi said right on the heels of her declaration. His grin suggested that he had just been waiting to see what she said so he could say the opposite.

Kaede sighed and looked at Kaito, who shifted around trying not to meet anyone's eyes. "I mean..." He said weakly. "It's, like, uh... not that I don't like the dude or think it's a bad idea or anything, but you know, it's just..."

"You don't like him and you think it's a bad idea," Maki supplied.

"He gives me the creeps! I can't help it! I know he's just like that, but I always feel like he wants to dissect me!"

Kaede sighed again. "It would really mean a lot to Shuichi if we let Korekiyo participate, you guys. It may not even be a permanent thing! He might just want to join every now and then for an adventure like Rantaro does, or maybe just spectate! Knowing him, probably spectate..." She trailed off, thinking about that. Kaito thought about it too and shivered.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Kaede continued. "Okay, look. I don't want to pull rank here, but I'm the Dungeon Master, and I think we should let him at least just run a dungeon with us. I could throw something together for a oneshot with no trouble at all, just to test stuff out before we think about adding anyone to the campaign. And I know Korekiyo's... uh..." She paused, trying to think of a nice descriptor. "...Eccentric..."

Maki rolled her eyes.

"Look, I know. But, I mean... we let Kokichi join." Kaede gestured helplessly at said boy.

"You _did_ let me join!" Kokichi chimed in helpfully.

"More like you wormed your way in and now we can't get rid of you without restructuring the whole game," Maki said.

"Yep!"

"Don't look so proud of that, you asshole!"

"Guys," Kaede cut in again before the argument could really get started. "Can we just... please, let's just do this at least once? I promise if things get really weird, we don't have to invite him back. But Shuichi wants to share something he enjoys with Korekiyo, and someone he cares about with us, and I want to support him."

"...I think it'd be nice." Kaito spoke up again, shooting an apologetic look at Maki. She raised her eyebrows disbelievingly at him in response. "I know what I just said, but. Man, I don't want to feel weird around the guy all the time. Sometimes you just have to expose yourself to stuff to get used to it, you know? And he's probably actually pretty normal under all the stuff, right?" Nobody else conceded that point. "Right?" Kaito asked again, weakly, and again received no answer.

Maki glanced around the table and huffed in annoyance, seeing that she was outnumbered. "Alright _fine_, this isn't the hill I want to die on today. But if stuff goes off the rails, I have the right to say I told you so."

Kaede clapped, smiling brightly. "Great! I'll text Shuichi and let him know we can do a one-off, and then I'll start getting stuff together and let you guys know what I come up with so you can start making characters. This is gonna be fun, trust me!"

Kokichi snickered and flicked his snack bar wrapper at a nearby trash can. It bounced off the rim and landed on the floor, and he pouted before Maki smacked him on the back of the head and told him to pick it up and throw it away properly.

\---

By the time Kaede found herself once again seated at the library table, face to face with Korekiyo's uncomfortably intense stare drilling into her and Shuichi fidgeting nervously next to them, she had begun to question her resolve just slightly.

"Okay, so," she toyed with the papers and books she'd brought to keep herself from squirming under Korekiyo's eyes. "We're going to do a oneshot, or one-off, which is a short adventure you play in full in a single session. Since you've never played before but everyone else has, I decided to do a dungeon that starts everyone at level 5. That way you'll get to see what it's like playing with a character who is more established in the world and has some more skills and stuff instead of starting completely from scratch like we usually do at the beginning of a long campaign. So the character creation process will take just a little bit longer, but when we're done you'll have a fully-formed person you can play as! And if you're into it, you can keep the base template and just drop or raise your level to suit whatever adventure you want to play in, at least for 5th Edition. Sound good?"

Korekiyo steepled his fingers. "It sounds enthralling," he said. Coming from anyone else, Kaede might have thought that was sarcastic, but she wasn't sure that Korekiyo knew how to be sarcastic in the first place. Anyway, storytelling and lore was his jam. She was pretty confident he'd be into that aspect of Dungeons & Dragons, at least.

"I explained a bit about the core races and classes before this," Shuichi piped up. "Kiyo was interested in maybe playing a bard."

"Ah, College of Lore?" Kaede guessed. Korekiyo nodded assent. It was hard to tell with the mask, but she thought that his expression had brightened somewhat. "Okay, we can work with that! Bards are high-charisma spellcasters, and a lot of them work as the party face, but they're also pretty good support in combat. Some builds can be good damage-dealers too, but usually you'll want to be either support or a striker..." She grabbed the player handbook from her stack of books and flipped it open, searching out the character creation sections.

"Have you thought about what race you want your character to be? The core races are human, half-elf, half-orc, halfing, and a few others, but there's a ton of options. Tieflings are pretty popular and they get good bonuses- that'd be a good fit for a bard if you wanted."

"Playing as a human seemed the most intuitive to me," Korekiyo said. "I'm given to understand that many consider humans the 'boring' option, but to exist as human even in such a fantastic setting, to hold your own and even rise above... or to sink to the depths of depravity or experience crushing defeat because others exceed your limitations... it's so perfect, is it not? It reminds me of a trip I took just last year..." He began to ramble on, seemingly forgetting the topic at hand.

Kaede shot Shuichi a wide-eyed look, and he shrugged helplessly. Korekiyo continued to wax poetic, lost in reminiscing and oblivious to the exchange.

When there was finally a lull in Korekiyo's speech, Kaede pounced on it. "So, human bard then?"

"Ah, apologies. I got carried away. Yes, I would like to play as a human bard."

Kaede nodded and quickly noted that down. "That's a good choice, honestly! Humans get a lot of skills and languages."

Korekiyo's eyes lit with interest. "Languages?"

"Oh yeah, there's a bunch of different languages in D&D. 'Common' is the standard human tongue and most races can speak it, but there's also Elvish, Dwarfish, Goblin..." Kaede began counting on her fingers as she listed things off. "And there are rarer languages that beings from other planes speak, like Infernal and Abyssal. You can take any of them as a human, as long as you can justify in your backstory why your character would speak it."

"Fascinating." Korekiyo had leaned forward slightly. "Tell me more, please. The beings which dwell on other planes- how do they figure in?"

An hour and a half later, Korekiyo had been thoroughly enlightened about various parts of worldbuilding and lore, Kaede had worn her voice out, and they still had barely started on his character sheet. Shuichi was smiling.

\---

_sorry were running late guys well be there in just a sec_

_please dont freak out when you see kiyos outfit_

_he worked really hard on it_

Kaede kept her smile fixed firmly in place as she reread Shuichi's last texts, but she couldn't help the feeling of foreboding creeping over her. They didn't do LARP -- anything that required putting weapons, real or fake, in Maki's hands was generally a no-go for group activities, they'd learned their lesson very thoroughly with paintball -- and had never gone as far as dressing up as their characters when getting together for tabletop. She was glad that Korekiyo seemed so enthusiastic about joining them for a game, but she genuinely had no idea what to expect based on Shuichi's words. All she could do was hope for the best.

Around the table holding their map and figures, Maki was impatiently tapping both her foot and her fingers, Kaito seemed to be having some last-minute second thoughts about his spell list as he went over it, and Kokichi was... looking something up on his phone and giggling about it. If it wasn't important enough for him to share with everyone, Kaede didn't want to know. She could have sighed with relief when she heard the library doors opening, and she looked up with a smile to greet their late-comers.

"Hey guys- _oh wow_."

To say that Korekiyo had put effort into his costume seemed a bit of an understatement. Having never seen him in anything other than his school uniform, Kaede was honestly a little gobsmacked. He'd put together an elegant kimono-style robe the color of parchment and covered it with symbols that on closer inspection were recognizable as runes and words of power or protection from the game lore, in various languages. His hands were uncovered, and Kaede was surprised to note how long and well-manicured his fingernails were. They had been painted black with dainty gold designs that she suspected might also be runes, though they were too small and fine for her to tell at a distance. He'd piled his hair up in a loose half-bun, leaving his neck and shoulders seeming more exposed than usual. If it wasn't for the fact that his lower face and neck were still covered -- with bandages, rather than his usual mask, but the effect was much the same -- Kaede thought she might not have even recognized Korekiyo.

Shuichi, in an apparent show of solidarity, was wearing a cape and pointed witch's cap. The hat seemed a little too small for him and wouldn't stay straight on his head; Kaede had to wonder if he'd borrowed it from Himiko last-minute.

"Oh, that's... really impressive, dude. Wow." Kaito was the first person able to speak up after the initial surprise of seeing Korekiyo like that. Kaede felt a little internal glow of pride towards him for it and his words, given how much he admitted Korekiyo unnerved him. Maki muttered something that sounded like reluctant agreement. Kokichi seemed posed to say something pithy, but Maki kicked him hard under the table, and he fell quiet with a little yelp.

Shuichi smiled faintly. "I told him we didn't normally do costumes, but he really wanted to, so..."

Korekiyo folded his hands. "I wish to put forth my best effort."

Kaede grinned brightly at them and waved them over to sit down. "Great! Let's get started then."

Once everyone was seated around the table, she cleared her throat and began to narrate from her prepared notes behind the DM screen. Glancing around, she took in each player's expression, all some form of interest, concentration, or anticipation. Her grin widened.

"Now... roll initiative."

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on the D&D jargon:  
-Dungeon Master: also called the Game Master or Storyteller depending on your game. This is the person who comes up with the plot, controls NPCs, and directs the players on their adventure.  
-Bard: magic musicians and storytellers  
-College of Lore: a popular bard sublcass that focuses on knowledge and stories  
-Party face: the party member(s) that does most of the social negotiation, usually whoever has the best charisma-based skills  
-Striker: someone who focuses on dealing damage in combat  
-Halfling: Hobbits  
-Tiefling: humanoids with infernal heritage and powers  
-LARP: Live Action Role Play  
-Roll initiative: a roll you make at the beginning of combat to determine turn order. Telling your players to roll initiative right at the beginning of an adventure implies you're throwing them into combat right off the bat and is a good way to get shat pants.
> 
> I don't have a reason behind this, I just wanted to write something silly and cute with no suffering involved.


End file.
